State v. Burdick, 2001 ME 143

Summary

The Supreme Judicial Court of Maine affirmed Richard Burdick's attempted-murder conviction and forty-year sentence. The court held that the sentencing court's failure to submit to the jury the aggravating circumstance that the victim was a law enforcement officer constituted Apprendi error, but the error was harmless because the evidence was undisputed and the jury had made the same finding in convicting Burdick of assault on an officer. A concurrence concluded that Apprendi was not implicated because the sentence was within the range authorized for the offense as charged and convicted.

Holdings

1. When an aggravating circumstance increases the prescribed statutory maximum punishment from a term of years to life imprisonment, the circumstance functions as an element of an aggravated offense and must be submitted to the jury and proved beyond a reasonable doubt.
2. The omission of the single aggravating circumstance from the attempted-murder jury instructions was not structural error requiring automatic reversal.
3. The instructional omission was harmless and did not constitute obvious reversible error because no rational jury could have found otherwise on the omitted aggravating circumstance.

Questions Presented

1. Whether Maine's attempted-murder sentencing provision violated Apprendi by permitting the sentencing court, rather than the jury, to find that the victim was a law enforcement officer acting in the performance of official duties and thereby expose the defendant to life imprisonment.
2. Whether any Apprendi error was structural error requiring automatic reversal.
3. Whether the unpreserved sentencing error constituted obvious error affecting substantial rights or causing manifest injustice.

Disposition

affirmed